The present disclosure relates to techniques for accessing business information in disparate databases.
Managers in companies routinely make decisions to allocate limited funds to invest in their businesses. Ideally, these investments will result in the highest rate of return for the companies. However, in practice it is often difficult for managers to access the information they need to make the best investment decisions.
In particular, as a company grows in size, its internal structure, which can include multiple business units, departments and groups, often becomes fragmented and complicated. For example, different portions of the company may use different kinds of business information (such as financial information, personnel information, asset information, etc.), and this business information may be organized in different ways (including different categories) in different databases. As a consequence, it can be difficult for managers to cross these internal information barriers to access the business information they need to make informed decisions based on the opportunity costs. In addition, this lack of ‘situation awareness’ often results in the perception that resources are ‘free’ or have no cost to the company, which undermines accountability and can lead management to become lax in their decisions.